The present invention relates to shoes, and more particularly to sports shoes having outer soles or outsoles having protrusions to provide increased traction.
Golf shoes are typically comprised of a shoe upper which is attached to some or all of an inner sole, a mid-sole and an outsole. For many years, golf shoes have employed nail-type spikes to increase the traction between the shoe and the grass of the golf course and thereby improve the golfer's footing. These spikes were threaded into sockets carried by a plate mounted on the hidden side of the outsole. Recently, a growing trend has developed away from the use of metal spikes to reduce the incidence of damage to the putting greens.
Initially, golf shoe manufacturers replaced the metal spikes with disc-like, softer spikes composed of a polymeric material, which do less damage to the putting greens. Such soft spikes often utilize the same threaded mounting as did traditional metal spikes, and can be directly substituted in the threaded sockets. New forms of sockets have been developed to accommodate further developments in such soft spikes to improve the traction provided by such spikes and to make it easier and quicker to replace the soft spikes. Some newer golf shoe designs have utilized outsoles having a plurality of integral, pyramid-shaped protrusions instead of spikes. The protrusions are also composed of polymeric material.
The soft spikes and protrusions have reduced the incidence of damage to the putting greens. However, the polymeric material of such soft spikes and protrusions is more susceptible to wear than the metal spikes and must therefore be replaced at more frequent intervals. In an attempt to lengthen the expected lifetime of the soft spikes and protrusions, golf shoe manufacturers have modified the design of the outsoles to include wear bars composed of polymeric material. Such wear bars generally have a rectangular shape and extend downwardly from the surface of the outsole to a support surface which has a much greater surface area than that of the spikes and protrusions. Positioning the wear bars on the outsole is critical to the design of the golf shoe since the wear bars have an adverse effect on traction.